The Liberal Party should have gone into the coalition negotiations determined to ensure that whatever happened they had the run of the metropolitan areas, the National Party the bush, and they shared the regional areas between them. Queensland politics will be out of joint until the non-Labor side of politics is run by the major non-Labor metropolitan party.
That hasn’t happened, and in the process the Liberal Party have shown the habitual inability to negotiate hard which the National Party would have expected all along, and traded on.
However, the Liberals did have some wins, from what I can find out, so here is the dot-point highlights as they are to hand:
there are three documents, only one of which pertains to after the election, the other two are for this side of the election;
there will be an opposition cabinet, but there will be no sharing of opposition resources between the parties (that means the Liberals will have to hold up their end without any additional resources);
when the National Party leader is absent, the Liberal Party leader will take his place (but presumably not his office, staff or car);
the Liberal Party State Director will be the Campaign Director during the election, under the direction of a joint campaign committee;
there will be a joint fund-raising committee and equal funding;
the Opposition will decide its position on parliamentary matters on the basis of a 75% or better marjority in the joint party room;
in the context of the joint election platform, the Liberal Party will decide policy for Greater Brisbane and the Gold and Sunshine Coast Areas, and the Nats will make policy for the rest; and
they will each run in the same seats as last time, with the exception of Burleigh, which the Liberals will have, and the six mentioned in my previous post, which will be subject to a joint preselection.
The joint preselection process is bizarre. It entails each party pre-selecting a candidate and then each pre-selected candidate fronting a combined preselection council made up of equal numbers of Liberals and Nationals. If the combined pre-selection council comes to a draw, a preselection council constituted of the party leadership convenes, and if it still comes to a draw, then there will be a three-cornered contest.
Just another day in Barnaby-land
Up here in Quinceland, our doubtfully redoubtable Senator (do we have any others apart from Andrew?) Barnaby has been defending his desire to never go to Canberra again, dressed up as an exercise in e-democracy.
Strangely, amidst the usual threats an…
Comment by Larvatus Prodeo — September 28, 2005 @ 12:45 am
That joint preselection process IS bizarre. I have never seen anything like it. As if either party is going to choose someone weak enough to cross the floor. What a joke.
Comment by R — October 4, 2005 @ 9:56 am